Frau Ava's poetic rendering of the history of salvation was a significant contribution to the vernacular religious literature of the German Middle Ages. Her poems, written circa 1120 to 1125, are documents of twelfth-century spirituality as well as of traditional Christian edification. In addition, Ava's poems are the earliest extant work of an identifiable woman author written in German. Nevertheless, scholars know little about the author apart from some autobiographical disclosures in her work and records of her death. It is in the final poem of the series that comprises her work that Ava tells something about her life:

Dizze buoch dihtote zweier chinde muoter
diu sageten ir disen sin, michel mandunge was under in.
nu bitte ich iuch gemeine, michel unde chleine,
swer dize buoch lese, daz er siner sele gnaden wunskende wese.
umbe den einen, der noch lebet unde er in den arbeiten strebet,
dem wunsket gnaden und...